Digital Messages comprise a sequence of binary digits conveying information. The binary digits are transmitted, in sequence, and received in sequence, to reconstruct the original digital message.
Digital Messages are extensively used for conveying data from one point to another. The digital message is modulated onto a carrier frequency which is then conveyed by a telecommunications channel to the receiving point where the modulated carrier is demodulated to recover the original digital message.
While transmission via, cable and telephone lines is generally of high quality and requires no particular sophistication beyond that already stated, many situations exist where the viability of the communications link is marginal and where the digital message must be conveyed under circumstances which are less than ideal.
One such environment is in satellite communications. A user terminal, perhaps in the form of a telephone handset, is in radio contact with a satellite which, in turn, conveys messages to and from the user terminal respectively from and to an earth station. There are circumstances where the satellite finds difficulty in establishing radio contact with the user terminal. The user terminal may be shielded by buildings, locked within a motor vehicle or in a desk, or unavailable for a host of other reasons. None the less, it is a function of a satellite communications system periodically to poll user terminals to determine their location or to instruct the user terminal to re-register with the satellite communication system as soon as radio contact with the satellite can be established. In order to achieve this purpose, the satellite sends a digital message, to the user terminal, at higher power than would be employed in normal communications. This is known as high power notification. There is a limit to the amount of power that a satellite can devote to attempting to poll a particular user terminal. While it is desirable to use as much available power as one can, there is a limit. Another approach is to use the available bandwidth to best effect and to ensure and improve the reliability of the decoding of the digital message.